


this fever defies measure

by TheBabbleRabble



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Don't Judge Me, Dreams and Nightmares, Enemies, F/M, Mild Sexual Content, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, religious fervor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 16:25:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13322016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBabbleRabble/pseuds/TheBabbleRabble
Summary: Her voice cuts him to the core: "Turn your face to the sun."Or: Helis plays a losing game against his own mind, battles with attraction he doesn't want, and spends far too much time thinking about the huntress he failed to kill. In the end, it changes nothing.





	this fever defies measure

**Author's Note:**

> if gross pining helis is the only this i contribute to this fandom uhhhhh only god can judge me, and im an atheist.  
> title taken from dessa, "matches to paper dolls"  
> also i wrote this in fucking wordpad so im sorry if the format is a little awful

This is a second chance.

With one hand, Helis holds the huntress's neck as he did on the mountain. With the other, he brings the knife to her throat, to where the scar of their last encounter stands against her skin. Again, he hesitates. There's no one to interrupt now, and with her back against the wall she's oddly calm, fingers wrapped loosely around his wrists and a hard gleam in her eye. She tilts her chin up to better meet his gaze.

Her thumb presses, almost gentle, against the pulse point of his wrist. It feels like a challenge. It feels like an invitation.

_Wanting_ hits him full-force in the chest.

He tries to force it back down into the shadows of his mind, where it has lurked since their first meeting. He can't afford this distraction, he can't afford _her_ , not when the Buried Shadow demands her death.

_But,_ whispers the hungry, desperate voice he's never been able to silence, _there's no one left to interrupt anymore._

_This is your last chance. Take it._

He shouldn't listen. But he does. This will either be the best or worst decision of his life. In the dizzying moment just before his lips touch hers, Helis finds he looks forward to finding out which it will be.

And then it's happening and there is no room in his mind for anything but her.

Her mouth opens soft and warm and wet beneath his, her hands slide up his arms to wrap around his shoulders and press him closer. The knife shakes in his hand, drops to the floor between them. He grasps at her hip, digs fingers into that beautiful red hair, loses himself to her gasps and her nails cutting lines against his skin.

Wanting was torture. Having is heaven.

She pushes his cloak from his shoulders, presses her thumbs at the hinges of his jaw and noses at the underside of his jaw. His fingers fumble at the ties of her leggings and she huffs out a laugh. The sound sings straight through him, up and down his spine in counterpoint to the movement of her hips against his. He manages the ties eventually, and they divest each other of the rest of their clothing in a matter of moments. She wraps a leg, hard with muscle, around his hip, using one hand to guide him while the other clutches at the back of his head. Her warm palm is almost cool compared to the burning heat at the apex of her thighs.

_Oh._ His whole body stutters before he finds the rhythm she's set, falls back into a dance he hasn't done in years. It's enough to overwhelm him.

He buries his face into her neck, kisses the column of her throat and the line of her jaw. Everything about her is more wonderful than his imagination could create, more wonderful than anything he's ever grasped in his own two hands before.

Is this why he hesitated, on the mountain? Is this why he failed then? So that, months down the line, he could have this moment? Her skin sweet beneath his tongue, their bodies intertwined so close they're almost one and the same and somehow he wants to be closer still. He wants to never let go, he wants to die here with her sighs in his ear, her legs around his hips, buried in her like this is his funeral, she is his coffin, he will never be apart from her again--

She makes a startled, wounded sound and goes still. Something warm and wet spills down his chest. Confused, he pulls away and everything starts to go wrong.

Her throat gapes open, slit from ear to ear, lifeblood painting red across her pale skin. She clasps her fingers like a vice around his wrist, her eyes accusing even as they go glassy and empty of light. Blood pools at their feet, at their ankles, at their knees, and she mouths words he refuses to understand. There's so much blood here, the blood of hundreds and thousands, the blood of the whole world pouring out of her.

She drags him forward by the wrist, hold his hand up between them like a condemnation. The knife is in his hand again. How did it--when did he--this isn't right, this isn't what he wanted--

Her voice cuts him to the core: "Turn your face to the sun."

O

Helis woke with sharp gasp, skin covered in a sheen of cold sweat. Shock melted into embarrassment and then burned into a rage with no target.

"What," he snarled, pressing the meat of his palms into his eyes, "was _that_?"

He'd had such dreams before, but never about _her_ , and he couldn't fathom why she would ever feature in a dream like that. She was marked for death and he had failed to carry out the order--that was their only connection. He couldn't waste time imagining the feel of her skin beneath his hands, let alone indulging in dirty fantasies like a horny teenager.

No matter how beautiful she was.

It was the huntress's fault. It had to be. Maybe she'd worked some strange Nora magic on him, a curse to twist his mind. He'd thought of her so often in the past months, thought of her to distraction. She must have done something to him, he knew no other option.

Unless this was all a test, a punishment for his failure. But he was Chosen, the Sun's Champion already proven time and again. Why test him now? There was no reason to it. If he failed in anything, it was only because of her interference.

And, with time, he would succeed.

So decided, he rose from his bed. The sun's fingers were crawling up the horizon and there was work to be done, blood to be spilled, a huntress to find and kill.

These dreams were a mere distraction. Once she was dead and the Sundom reclaimed, they would pass and he would be at peace again.

O

In the months stretching between the mountain and now, Helis can almost believe the huntress is dead. His men report no sightings, and in her wake she leaves only cooling corpses and shattered machines. Rumors reach his ears of a red-haired Nora passing through the Sundom like a storm, her aim steady, her strikes like thunder, her presence like lightning there and gone again.

Maybe he succeeded in slitting her throat on the mountain and she rose again as a vengeful spirit.

He thinks he could believe it. Here. Now.

"Don't move," she says from just behind him, the tip of an arrow resting against the back of his neck, between two vertebrae. He can't see anything in this darkness, but then that makes little difference. She's lingered just beyond his sight for months, maybe for his whole life. "Or you'll end up like every other Eclipse to cross my path."

He swallows, doesn't ask the question burning on his tongue ( _and if I stay still, what then?_ ), and holds back a shudder as her breath passes over his shoulder. He stays silent even as her foot catches around his ankle, her hands spin him in place so his back hits the floor, her knee like an anvil on his chest. The shadows shield her face from his eyes, but he can see the way her mouth quirks at one corner, half a snarl and half a smirk.

The arrowhead rests now against his jugular. He could throw her off, in theory. His limbs feel too heavy to move, his mind slow with exhaustion. Here. Their chase has come to an end with her victorious. All these months he's spent thinking he was the hunter and she the prey. In the end, he was chasing his own tail while she waited to spring her trap.

Her free hand strokes across his brow, traces the shell of his ear, and then the arrowhead breaks the skin.

"Turn your face to the sun," she says as she drives the arrow through his throat.

O

She was in his grasp.

Finally. _Finally._

He'd found her beneath Sunfall, caught her distracted and unaware.

There, in the dark ruins of the Metal World, he had triumphed over her with such ease. The real battle had been against himself. The part of him that dreamed and hungered threw itself against the walls of his mind. The part that wanted, the part that should have died years ago with his wife, it made demands he couldn't follow.

She was in his grasp now, outside his wild, foolish dreams. Surely, whispered that stupid, terrible part of him, surely there was nothing wrong with--

Helis didn't touch her more than was necessary, no matter how the voice begged, no matter how his fingers itched. To give in was worse than weakness. To give in would mean admitting to those desires, to thinking of her as more than a target. Helis had his pride. He was holding onto it by his fingernails, but that wasn't the point.

It was almost a relief when she woke. On one hand, it was a welcome distraction from thoughts of touching her, of finding out if her skin was as smooth as he imagined, if her hair was as soft. He was the Terror of the Sun, and aside from that a a grown man. He shouldn't be mooning like a boy over anyone, let alone the woman he'd been trying to kill for months.

On the other hand, as soon as she woke, she started talking. Short of gagging her, it felt like nothing would stop her insolent comments. He supposed he couldn't expect a savage to be well-mannered. Though it wasn't too much to hope she might at least not be so _annoying_.

"Open this cage," she snarled, another interruption, another failure to grasp the point and understand her true purpose. "And put your faith to the test."

The recklessness in him wanted to accept her challenge. Wanted to feel her blood run over his fingers--perhaps, if rumors hadn't exaggerated her prowess, _his_ blood over _hers_ as well--as it should have been on the mountain. There was no one left to interrupt. It would be just him and her. It would be glorious.

It would be foolish. Helis could admit, if only to himself, that if he held a blade to her throat again he would hesitate and the hesitation would prove fatal.

So he pushed the idea aside and focused on the matter at hand. By the sun's will, she would be dead within the hour. All would be righted. The dreams would stop, the Sundom would be reclaimed, the world as it should be again. All according to plan. All according to the destiny he'd always followed.

The cage dropped into the Sun Ring. The Behemoth advanced on her.

And then the plan fell apart before his very eyes.

She triumphed against a Behemoth. She escaped on the back of a tamed Strider, alongside the traitor Sylens. In spite of all his efforts, she still lived.

He'd failed.

_Again._

O

The huntress leans over him, her hair a curtain of sunlight shielding them from the rest of the world. His wounds throb but he has attention only for the look in her eyes and the feel of her callused hand cupping his cheek. She strokes her thumb back and forth across the thin skin beneath his eye. It's the gentlest touch he's ever felt. It's a comfort, though he doesn't know why she's comforting him.

His hand shakes, weak and heavy as lead, but with great effort he raises it to her face. His clumsy fingers leave a smear of blood on her cheekbone and her look turns pitying. She takes his wrist, guides his hand back to the ground at his side.

He tries to speak, unsure of what words his mouth is forming. It's important. It must be. His breath catches on fishhooks in his throat, comes out as a harsh cough, blood splattering over his tongue. She rests a finger against his lips.

"Shhhh, there's little time left," she whispers.

_What?_ he wants to ask. _Little time left for what?_

But she's settling back on her heels, the blue sky revealed to him somehow lacking compared to her. She looks up at the cloudless expanse of it, eyes aglow with a fervor he's only ever seen in the mirror. The tips of her fingers trace the ragged, bleeding hole in his chest and dip in, steady as a spearpoint. Something rips. Something settles.

He watches as she lifts his heart up to the sky, watches it catch fire and burn.

Watches himself be offered up, given over to the god who claimed him when he was just a boy. He hasn't felt peace like this in decades.

"It's almost over, Helis. Turn your face to the sun."

O

The day of battle arrived, the culmination of his destiny. Helis had waited his entire life for this day. He would lead the Eclipse, march on Meridian, and meet Aloy of the Nora on the battlefield. One or the other of them would be dead by day's end.

As he put on his armor, Helis felt serene. It would all be over soon. No matter who won, the dreams would end. The Carja and the Shadow Carja would reunite. Blood would spill into the sand. As it should be. As it must be.

And so it was.

He carved a path through the city, and all who faced him died by his hand. There was no effort to it, no thought but for one: When would she appear? When would their final, fated confrontation begin? He had half a mind to seek her out, rush headlong into destiny, but no. He could wait, and the fight would be all the sweeter for it.

His patience was rewarded in time. She dropped down from her rappelling line, hadn't even risen from her crouch before putting an arrow into the skull of every last Eclipse man fighting at his side.

Good.

It was just him and her now. Every step, every moment since the mountain, since they'd been _born_ , led them here, to this moment. To see who would win, the Terror of the Sun or the sun-haired, implacable Nora huntress.

The rumors hadn't exaggerated her ability. If anything, they understated. She struck with brutal strength and impossible speed, met him arrow for arrow and blow for blow. For someone so small, she absorbed damage without a blink, her strange armor flashing with light against each impact. She closed on him, knocked the arrow from his bow and the bow from his hands. Accepted a strike to the face as payment for a gash across his chest.

It was the best fight of his life.

He hardly noticed his wounds, the blood and bruises, the weakness gathering in his joints and the exhaustion clinging to his muscles. They could stay here forever, locked in the embrace of battle, always an inch away from victory or death.

Then it ended, all too soon. Her final strike brought him low, took him to his knees before her. She had such brilliant skill, but until that moment he thought he might still win.

Worst of all, she pitied him. Comforted him. He almost rejected it, but he knew his story had drawn to a close. Despite himself, he was glad of it. No more dreams. No more chase. All of it, the dead sprint from that day on the mountain to this moment now, finally over and peace was at hand for the first time in months or years or his whole life. He could face this with his dignity intact.

She granted him that much.

Aloy of the Nora, huntress, machine-rider, machine-killer, readied herself for the death blow. And then, her voice kinder than he'd ever heard it outside his dreams, she said:

"Turn your face to the sun."

**Author's Note:**

> pretty sure helis never learns aloy's name which is why it's only mentioned twice. this is gross but it's meant to be bc helis is a gross person and so am i.  
> (also maybe someday i'll write the novel-length fic where helis's religious fervor causes him to see aloy as an avatar of the sun and brilliant, fist-dialogue-option aloy rolls it with to stop hades.)


End file.
